"Latin America gearing up for the World Summit on the Information Society": national processes reports�

Valeria Betancourt

LAC ICT Policy Monitor Project

APC ~ Association for Progressive Communications

At the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003, APC member organizations in Argentina (Wamani), Ecuador (Ecuanex) and Mexico (LaNeta), and friend organizations in Dominican Republic (Funredes) and Bolivia (CRISBOL) held consultation, reflection, debate and action around national interests, needs and visions for the construction and/or development of the so called �information societies�.�� The process was also oriented to help civil society groups to reflect on and get involved in the process leading up to the WSIS which will take place in Geneva in December 2003 and Tunisia in 2005.

This document presents the most relevant aspects of the national journeys developed in the occasion of the WSIS.� The methodologies applied in each country were different:� Wamani interviewed electronically civil society, academics and government key actors; Ecuanex, CRISLBOL and Funredes organized multistakeholder meetings and workshops; and, LaNeta worked based on the review of secondary sources (institutional web sites, documents, initiatives, among others) and a discussion forum. �Any of the reports that presents the results of the national processes pretend to reflect the civil society position as a whole, but they provide a picture of the situation, trends and visions of a significant number of actors.�

Argentina

�The absence of a policy (or the policy of not having policies) has determined the logical redundancies as well as the important absences, in despite of the ICT and the information society programs and initiatives.� Wamani came up with interesting conclusions from the interviews to actors of different social actors and the critical analysis of the national ICT and information society policies and initiatives:� the technological agenda is linked to the general policy of the Argentinean State.� This general policy has driven the country, in the last years, to experiment a severe process of des-articulation of the social contract and to the increment of poverty indexes. Therefore, the definition of ICT and information society policies goes by the redefinition of the general economic and political rules, in the perspective of incorporating the diversity of social actors, especially those that have been absent:� academia and the associative sector.� In relation to the WSIS, the particular demand from the NGOs is related to the implementation of virtual mechanisms to enlarge civil society organizations participation.

The complete report is in: http://lac.derechos.apc.org/wsis/cdocs.shtml?x=9112

Bolivia

Bolivia is taking back an urgent and necessary debate.� Years of rich and concrete communication experiences are the base for the discussion and that open the opportunity for the country to contribute substantively en the continental scenario. The Bolivian CRIS Platform, the national chapter of the global CRIS Campaign, developed two national meetings (between October 2, 2002 and 22 January, 2003) oriented to the collective definition of the direction that the Information Society will take in Bolivia.� One of the most relevant achievements of the process is to have reached agreements and consensus with the government around information society key issues and aspects.� This agreement was the base for the definition of the Bolivian position for the WSIS Latin American and the Caribbean Regional Conference.� The following are the agreed aspects:

� The information and communication society should be based on communication as a Universal Human Right.� The design and implementation of the general and specific strategies are a shared responsibility between the government, the private sector and the civil society.��

� The communication and information media should be in function of the strengthening of the local identities and capacities (rural, peri-urban and urban) for the human participatory and sustainable development. They should address the integration of all regions, differentiating the diverse technical platforms according with the local and regional needs.

� To implement new information and communication technologies to respond to the sustainable human development process, it is necessary to consider five criteria: social appropriation, local content production, use and application of appropriate technologies, convergence of new and traditional technologies and pertinence of languages and cultures.

� The technological platforms should be all those allow the satisfaction of the different social needs in terms of communication and information: radio, rural telephony, television, video, Internet, satellite, etc.

� Besides the importance of training in the use of technical platforms, it si fundamental the training oriented to the appropriation and interpretation of communication and information content according with sustainable and participatory human development processes.

� The generation of economic sustainable processes is a collective responsibility of all the sectors (government, private and civil society).� Allocation and implementation of financial resources should be transparent and it must involve to all stakeholders based on strategies, action plans (in short, medium and long term) elaborated in a participatory way.

It was not possible to reach agreement in relation to the following aspect:

� Through an appropriate legal framework, the government should guarantee the right to communicate for all social actors.� This implies to promote the access and the use of content and information and communication tools. In addition, it is related to create policies and laws around the right to produce and own content and media, incorporating criteria of plurality.

The full report is available at: http://lac.derechos.apc.org/wsis/cdocs.shtml?x=9827

Dominican Republic

In January 2003, Funredes led the realization of an informative and reflective meeting for civil society about the national wagers in relation to the WSIS.� The objective of the meeting was to inform and stimulate key civil society actors about the implications of the social changes brought by the information and communication technologies and the preparation process towards the WSIS.

The conclusion of the journey pointed to recognize that at public level there is the decision to prioritize the information society issue in the agenda.� There is a variety of running initiatives and programs in relation to the ICTs and the information society.� However, they are oriented basically to assure access and infrastructure.� The consideration of the methodological aspects for the implementation of the programs, the vision of the ICTs strategic appropriation as tools for development and the training for content production, is absent.

In relation to the level of engagement and understanding of the ICTs and information society related aspects by civil society organizations, the conclusion that those are topics that are not part of the collective agenda and that an intensive and continuous working process to promote proactive participation is needed.� There is a valuable accumulated potential in civil society organizations and NGOs that have years of experience in the field of ICTs and the information society.� They can be key for the development of information, training, promotion of active civil society participation processes.��

Aditional conclusions point the importance of the use of the term �information societies� in the �understanding that each society should define and build an information society according with its socioeconomic, political and cultural reality and design it based on its development and human integral evolution ideals�. In relation to the social wagers involved in the construction of the information societies, access, contents and applications should be articulated with a process of building capacities in the use of ICTs and the understanding of its implications, impacts and challenges at social, economic, political and cultural levels. The necessity of putting the digital divide issue in its fair dimension, means to see it as a consequence and reflection of the social structural gaps and, therefore, subordinated to them.� Very closed related to this issue it is the digital inclusion one and the need of a networking culture development� in the perspective of assuring the �real and effective participation through open, transparent and plural processes in which democracy and respect to the diversity would be a practiced by the majority�.�

Speak about information societies is speak about new paradigms and social organization forms, of appropriation of technologies and its impact in social relations.��� Speak, therefore, about the culture, languages, education and empowerment of social groups. The intrinsic relation between the social and the technological demands a meaningful use of the technological tools.

Coordinated participation between the different social actors and the recognition of the inputs that each one can do is determinant for the construction of the information societies.� Civil society must generate mechanisms that allow it to organize itself in order to be participative in the process of definition and development of the information societies.� To achieve those objectives, is it necessary to make visible the benefits and potentialities of ICTs to improve and enlarge people�s life quality.� It is also necessary to demonstrate how ICTs can be linked with the priorities agenda of civil society organizations that are focused on poverty reduction and acquisition of basic needs.

The meeting and workshops as well as the promotion, incentive and continuation mechanisms of the process of reflection and action that emerged from them, are oriented to strengthen the �potentialities of civil society organizations for a proactive participation in the construction of information societies which respond to the Dominican society interest, cultural, economic and socially.�

The full report is available at: http://lac.derechos.apc.org/wsis/cdocs.shtml?x=9826

Mexico

�With wide experience in the use of new technologies and in organizations processes, diverse civil society actors have gotten engaged with the analysis and discussion around communications, media, regulations, access, privacy and other issues that are part of the WSIS framework. In that sense, in November 2002, various organizations agreed to promote an space to support the Mexican civil society movement in the process of being informed and being able to participate strategically in different aspects of the information and communication agenda in the country�.�� Articulation of ONGs and civil society organizations is also being generated around the information society, communication, its nature and development, based on their experience on the use and promotion of ICTs for the enhancing of collaborative processes and in the search of mechanism to strength the democracy.

�Recently, different civil society organizations are incorporating in their own agendas the promotion and defense of the right to communicate�. �They are also incorporating in their field of action and debate topics related to the right to communicate and information democratization. Organizations that are daily working with media are developing proposals oriented to the right to communicate. According to that, they are placed in the framework of the construction of the information and knowledge society�.

In despite of the meaningful advances, it is necessary to enlarge the participation and bring the debate to other civil society groups, such as the indigenous, labor unions, rural organizations, youth groups, women, academia, among others.

A crucial aspect for the development of information societies is the defense and promotion of the communities self-determination capacity: �the communities are the ones to define their own mechanism and projects that allow them to be involved in the information and knowledge society�. Active participation of all stakeholders in the process of design, formulation, monitoring and evaluation of ICTs and information society policies is essential.� Additionally, the importance of building consensus and communication strategies between the government and civil society organizations must be highlighted.

The Mexican report provide an exhaustive overview of the different initiatives, programs and actions that the public sector, the academia, and the civil society groups are developing in relation to ICTs and the information society.

The full report is available at: http://lac.derechos.apc.org/wsis/cdocs.shtml?x=11731

Ecuador

For the Ecuadorian case, it is necessary to design an discussion strategy around the priorities in relation the information society and the right to communicate. A debate and reflection oriented no only to the academic discussion but only to the social change. This is a collective process of all stakeholders, not forgetting the linkage between communication and citizen participation.� The challenge is to generate a social debate around those aspects from a national perspective. The current political scenario in Ecuador in which some indigenous and representatives of social movements are participating, offers an opportunity� for the construction of civil society mechanisms of incidence in ICT and information society policy processes.

The full report is available at: http://lac.derechos.apc.org/wsis/cdocs.shtml?x=9874

To conclude�

The national meetings and workshops offered an opportunity to bring near civil society groups to the key information society issues, to debate around the already recognized rights related to communication and information, the analysis of its tends as well as to the exchange of information in relation to the communication experiences and the use, appropriation and promotion of ICTs.�� In the same way, the importance of designing strategies for the continuous collective reflection, discussion and analysis for assuring the incidence on the process of information society development was highlighted.